Its Time Again

They’ve just broken into groups and doing right passing drills. About every 90 seconds to 3 minutes the whistle blows and they swap bins from defending to attacking. Now back into full field ball movement. I’m guessing transferring what they did in the smaller groups. Preuss has a huge kick. Hate to say it but there’s a hell of a lot of kicks not hitting targets. Sparrow has the gate of a natural athlete. Body language is very confident. Leads really well to good places. Marty Hore solid unit. There’s going to be some solid contested marking capacity in this squad. Bedford’s doing some nice work. Getting to the right places to receive and making good decisions and delivering accurately. Petty still looks pretty light for a potential KP player. They’re doing a contested ground ball exercise where a ball is rolled to 2 players who have to fight for it. McCartney told someone to tackle harder. They want it to be full match day intensity. Garlett’s skills still stand out and he seems pretty engaged. He’d be a real bonus if he comes good this year. The competition for his spot is building. Jordan is also a good ready to go size. Another group doing a drill where they are tackled under pressure and have to get an accurate ball off to an outside player who has to snap across the body at goal. All the handballs go off and all the snaps I saw went through. Another group doing a drill where you stand with your back to a group are handballed a ball and have to turn and pick out from a series of players leading and get a low pass to them. Wagner started. Didn’t miss a pass. Seems to be doing some training with the forwards. The backs are in a group at the moment doing a clearing exercise. They were all brought in and there’s extensive coaching going on by Troy Chaplin. Then back into a drill in groups leading and passing. The philosopher is training with the backs. Hore’s Skills are good

Good New is Trac Gus and Vanders are all in main group. Update on this from Crossy is they are in but still slightly modified but will be back in full during or immediately after next weeks camp.

Having a look at main group now. A lot of cheering and clapping going on as they are all bunched in the middle. I’d be guessing some comp on winners for last weeks training. Pretty sure it’s not team selection. Now doing full oval game simulation. It’s full gas. Clearly working on game plan ball movement. What I’m noticing is the players down field leading to space and players with the ball being patient and looking for the lead before kicking. Plenty of missed targets at this stage. There’s no wind which suggests to me they are really working on low kicks to targets under pressure. Thats definitely looking like a focus From what I’m seeing Preuss is no lumbering slow big man. He’s surprisingly agile and fast. He’s also doing as much running as the midfielders. On what I’m seeing I reckon he’s going to surprise us. KK just took a brilliant contested mark and summed up options and did a great kick to a leading player.

As others have said Viney looks in amazing form. Unfortunately Melk still seems on a pretty compromised progam mainly just running.

McCartney has just gone over from main group to discuss the rehab training with the 2 guys with the computers just for them. That’s the attention to detail nowadays. I’ve counted 25 support staff out there coaches trainers etc. How far have we come ina few years. Apparently this footy program is now cutting edge versus the rest of the Comp

I’m here. Let me know if there’s anything you want to look out for. Just standing next to the rehab group. Lever has clearly taken a strong leadership role. Just said to the group “Very good. Keep training game day habits. A lot of skills work going on. Passing to players on a lead and passing on to the next player. Said something like just run 100%” just spoke to Mitch Hannan. He said the knees feeling good. He’s getting a lot of running in now and hopes to be in full training in a few weeks. Asked him how does he feel walking into the AFL from the VFL the way he has and being on the website with the goal of the year and in a final. He said it’s surreal. He never imagined it. I said players come into the AFL and never play in a final and he’ll have that forever. He was beaming. I said he’s in for a great run. Others have been here 10 years and left with nothing. He said Thanks mate really appreciate it and ran off with a grin on his face. Go Dees Clarry just said back into full training in a couple of weeks. Standing next to the rehabers drink bottles by accident. It’s where they all come so perfect place to sneak in questions. Jonesy came over and went straight into boxing. I pity the poor bloke holding the pads. He’s pounding them. They have 2 computers set up just for rehab. One seems to have GOS data the other live footage just of their training.

I can help you with this. I know a bit about body language. Did he shake his head up and down or side to side. The answer will offer a clue to his state of mind and body.

Bet you didn't say that when Jacko did it and that was incestuous.

Pies are a bit light on everywhere. Had no right to be in a GF with the positional deficiencies they have everywhere except the midfield. Forward line is a lumbering 211 American who is so so as a forward and less than so so as a ruckman given he is the equal tallest player to ever play the game. Other than him they only have two 191cm key forwards. Not really the height of a key forward anymore. We all no the deficiencies they have in the backline. Amazing what they achieved. Mihocek isn't even on their main list he's still on the rookie list for 2019 according to their website

That's what my body looks like. It's just buried very deep somewhere. Probably the same place as my footy skills.

Pies also had Sier in the forward line. He and Mihocek are the same height as Darling. Pies have just recruited Roughead. They look like they have the same view of the need for a genuine second ruckman and 3rd tall in the forward line. I could see Maxy causing a major headache in our forward line which may well justify him playing less time in the ruck. It will also likely preserve his career. We were getting plenty of i50's last season we couldn't convert them. This may be an answer. We'll know soon enough.

Has anyone noticed if Preuss's aerobic capacity has improved relative to Gawny since he's arrived. I'm sure this will be a focus and why he's doing so much running with Gawny. You might be right but I really hope you're wrong. Preuss's recruitment for me was one of the more interesting in quite a while for two reasons. Firstly I was sure it meant Hogan was out the door. Secondly I reckon it means we will follow the two Grand Finalists and have two key forwards and a resting ruckman as a forward. They proved it isn't too top heavy. It's amazing how things have changed so quickly from the Tigers 2017 Premiership which everyone thought showed that teams would only have one key forward. You couldn't say Preuss is less mobile than Cox and I would say Vardy as well. Logically his choice to come to the Dees makes no sense if he was told you're only going to get a game if Gawn gets injured. I think they are going to play him in that Cox/Vardy role and the ruck rule changes mean the days of players like Harmes and Grigg playing in the ruck are over. You are going to have to have a genuine second ruck.

I can tell you're a wannabe deipnosophist. But frankly I'm applying a bit of floccinaucinihilipilification

If you like that. Try this one. Theia shadow.

Different person. Much younger. He was a very short full forward for Hawks who had a couple of excellent years and was then traded to Essendon where through injuries and loss of form he never had much of an impact.

Reminds me of an American sex education video we were shown in a Religious Studies class in about Year 9 at school. This was mid '70's. A kid was standing outside his High School with a beaming face proudly saying "I got it!"

How so? Fill me in

Judging by your avatar you're a Usual Suspect. When Biffen was playing for us his father Leo, worked for my father and was a game day trainer for the team. I used to go down and annoy him with a thousand questions every time I went to my father's business. He used to give me used MFC training footys. I felt like a millionaire.

Salute to the greatest political slogan I can remember. I believe Singleton came up with it for Labor's 1972 campaign which broke their 23 year electoral drought. Drought breaking hit an obvious nerve for a lifelong Dees supporter. When I chose it in about 2007 I thought we were entering the new era that was going to break our drought and I didn't expect it to be relevant for more than a few years. Oh well. Will gladly replace it when it becomes redundant. Although by then it will be relevant to the 2 peat and then the 3 peat etc. The slogan and it's success had some significant impacts on my families lives. My brother had just been advised he was going in the next lottery for conscription to the Vietnam war. Whitlam won the election and immediately stopped conscription which probably saved my brother going there. He also brought in free tertiary education which I benefited directly from. That slogan heralded in one of the craziest political periods in our history. A breathtaking series of political reforms such as the Marriage Act and land rights and economic madness like the Khemlani affair and Junie Morosi. Who'll ever forget Al Grassby. Ahh they were the days. All leading to our greatest political crisis. What a slogan. My avatar succinctly sums me up. We were born on the same day. Not the same year though. I got the clown bit without the genius bit but hopefully a healthy sense of the absurd. Other less kind people might say I got the absurd without anything else. Anyhow..... It's Time.

......and Beyond

The other thing it does is make you appreciate the quantum leap in standard to the Firsts and just how good they are. A bit of perspective can be a good thing.

Better than the alternative.

Interesting binman. What a minefield that decision is going to be next season. Petty clearly is holding his arm. It's one thing to push someone but surely it's another to actually grab hold of their arm and hold onto it to twist their body away from the contest. I thought the only change to the rules was that you can put hands on the back now as long as it isn't a push. Good luck to the poor umpires deciding when hands in the back are or aren't a push. If I was a forward I'd just lung forward just a bit when I feel the hands on my back. How could an umpire tell if it is a push or a dive. I can hear the supporters howls from here. Including mine. And it's probably not the umpires fault. Talking about rule changes. I can't believe they didn't do away with the ruckman having to nominate and just give a free if two players from the same team go up in the ruck contest. That rule very nearly cost us a finals spot thanks to Dangerfield's antics. The other is the protected area. I guess that can be fixed by interpretation rather than changing the rule itself. But this season this rule was completely inconsistent and potentially disastrous in several games.

When I started going to thre footy you could watch the U19’s, Reserves then the Seniors. From memory Robbie Flower went through all 3 in the one season by May. and never left the Seniors.

I've got SpecSavers. I better swap.